The Secret of Self Talk

What have you told yourself today?  Do you know?  This is hard to tap into at times.  It's important though. You are who you tell yourself you are!

Athletes are trained to visualize themselves winning, to see themselves doing everything right, to think in the positive.  But what happens when an underlying message comes through.  Does that cause them to lose?  Actually, studies have shown that it does.

When we tell our kids, or our employees, they are good at something  do they like doing it more?

These thoughts surfaced as I was talking about reading groups at the kids' school.  Remembering back oh so many years ago... If you were in the top reading group you were a smart kid.  If you were in the lowest reading group, you weren't.   If you believed you were a good reader you read for pleasure.  If you weren't a 'good reader' you avoided reading and would even say "I don't like to read".   So we're still passing this message on to our kids. I don't know of any way around it.  I do know what happened at our house.  My youngest son was put in the lowest reading level in kindergarten.  Not because he couldn't read the books that the kids in the top level were reading BUT because he couldn't keep up with them in the other center activities, OR just turning the pages.  Over the summer we continued our reading and Hooked on Phonics.  I kept telling him he was a great reader in front of his Dad and his Grandparents and his Aunt and Cousins.  We would say he was a Rock Star in reading.  We would marvel at how well he read and pronounced menus.

So off he goes to a brand new school for first grade and he promptly tells his teacher, " I'm a good reader. I can read at the 3rd grade level."  I would say his confidence was up!  And whether he can read at that level or not, he believes he can and he enjoys his reading every night.

So maybe we need to break down old ideas that we have about ourselves.  Look at what we are good at. Tell ourselves what we are capable of.  See ourselves doing well and doing IT!  Whatever IT may be. Now go tell yourself how great you are...]]>